Hellman on Money & Speech and Terrorism & Politics

Humanitarian Law Project allows us to see the mistake of a jurisprudence begun in 1976 which too quickly moved from the claim that money both expresses support and facilitates speech to the conclusion that giving and spending of money deserve First Amendment protection. That claim is clearly wrong. If it were correct, giving money to terrorist organizations would also be “speech” under the First Amendment. That conclusion—a sort of argument ad absurdum—shows us that the premise is flawed. Congress may prohibit giving money to political organizations because providing material support for speech is not same as speaking.